Skate park receives state level award

May 10, 2017 11:23AM
● Published by Travis Barton

West Valley held the grand opening of their skate park at Centennial Park on Oct. 8. The skate park received outstanding facility recognition from the Utah Recreation and Parks Association. (Kevin Conde/West Valley City)

West Valley City
was presented an award from the Utah Recreation and Parks Association (URPA)
for its Outstanding Facility Recognition for the West Valley City Skate Park.

“I'm so excited
about the skate park, I think it's such a booming success, and I’m
really happy and proud to have it recognized at our state level,” said the
city’s Parks and Recreation Director Kevin Astill.

Officials from
the UPRA presented the award during a city council meeting on March 28. The
membership association gathers each year to recognize facilities and programs
for their excellence with UPRA President Derric Rykert saying they
love to see what’s happening throughout Utah.

“What stood out
to us about this one was the persistence that it took to make it happen,”
Rykert told the city council.

The park’s grand
opening was in October 2016, but the idea started 15 years before with West
Valley resident Josh Scheuerman who continuously came to city council meetings
to advocate the community need for a skate park.

“Josh Scheuerman
worked on that with us for years, and
I don't know of anybody's project that went on that long that finally came
about,” Astill said.

Rykert said it
was great learning about the “grassroots” of what it took to bring the skate
park to the community.

“To find a way
to fund that and to make it happen, oftentimes
is not an easy thing,” Rykert said. “So, to
see you accomplish this as a city, it’s exciting for us as an organization to
see the support your parks and recreation department has from you as a city
council.”

Rykert said they
were proud themselves to recognize the city’s staff.

“We’re proud and
grateful to recognize your skate park as an outstanding facility in Utah this
year. Congratulations and thank you for the work that you did,” he said.

Astill said
seeing the skate park be so popular has been wonderful.

“I really love
it…and then to have the skate park so wildly successful, so heavily used (makes
it even better),” Astill said. He added having Wi-Fi at the park works to its
advantage with parents able to do work in the car while the kids are enjoying
the park.

Mayor Ron
Bigelow said there was only one day where he passed the skate park and there
weren’t people there.

“It was covered
in snow,” Bigelow remarked.

Another
item of note:

The city council
voted to approve an ordinance on April 4 that would allow additional members to
the Professional Standards Review Board
(PSRB). The board
currently has seven members and the ordinance would require a minimum of five.

The ordinance
also amended language of the municipal code to make the PSRB more efficient in
their work.

PSRB is a
citizen committee tasked with reviewing all use of force and complaints against
officers of the West Valley City Police Department. The board offers
recommendations and feedback on all cases striving to determine whether officer
actions were made within policy or not.

City Manager
Wayne Pyle said he proposed the ordinance change after interviewing two
different people who he felt both warranted a spot on the board.

When passing the
ordinance, councilman Steve Vincent said he’s “encouraged there exists a group
of citizens that are willing to review our police efforts. It’s transparent and
it’s open and they do an outstanding job.”

The PSRB typically
holds public comment sessions on the second Thursday of each month.